Anne Eichmann

The NAVBO Meritorious Awards Committee, the Scientific Advisory Board, and the NAVBO Council announce with pleasure the selection of Anne Eichmann, Ph.D., as the recipient of the 2019 Judah Folkman Award in Vascular Biology. This award recognizes outstanding contributions from vascular biologists who are at mid-career (within fifteen years of their first faculty appointment). Dr. Eichmann will present her Folkman Award Lecture, titled “Guidance of Vascular Barrier Formation” and receive the award at Vascular Biology 2019 in Pacific Grove, California (October 30, 2019).

Dr. Eichmann completed undergraduate studies in Veterinary Medicine at the Freie Universität, in Berlin and an MSc at the Weizmann Institute in Israel, earning her PhD in Molecular and Cell Biology at the Universite Paris XI, Orsay (1994). Following stints as Research Fellow in the CNRS Institut d’Embryologie in Nogent-sur-Marne, France and Research Director at the Collège de France, she joined the faculty of Medicine at Yale University in 2010. She is currently the Ensign Professor of Medicine (Cardiology), Professor of Cellular and Molecular Physiology, and a member of the Yale Cardiovascular Research Center.

Dr. Eichmann’s laboratory studies the mechanisms that govern cellular guidance and tissue patterning during vascular and lymphatic development, with a focus on “tip cells,” specialized endothelial cells located on the leading edge of growing capillary sprouts. These slowly-proliferating cells appear to serve as guides to vascular patterning, by extending filopodia that explore the tip environment. The endothelial cells that follow behind, termed “stalk cells,” proliferate more rapidly and actively form a capillary lumen capable of sustaining blood flow. Her research findings have been published in top-tier journals, and her lab has earned significant and sustained funding from the NIH. Her list of honors includes an INSERM young investigator award (2002), the Jean Bernard Award from the Medical Research Foundation FRM (2006), and election as a member of EMBO (2013).

Colleagues writing in support of Dr. Eichmann’s nomination for the Folkman Award noted that her work is “…always of the highest quality possible, is highly innovative, contains extraordinary mechanistic depth and breadth, and continually pushes the frontiers of the vascular biology field.” Others offered that Dr. Eichmann “…is a superb colleague and mentor. She has trained a number of young scientists who have gone on to make significant contributions as independent scientists, such as Ferdinand LeNoble, Liz Jones and Bruno L’Arrivee. She is a generous colleague always ready to provide reagents and ideas to other labs. As service to the vascular biology community, she has done more than her share of meeting organization, served on NAVBO Council, and is a frequent reviewer of manuscripts and grants.”

Please join us for VB2019 at Asilomar this October to honor Dr. Eichmann as she receives the Folkman Award in recognition of her accomplishments and bright future as a vascular biologist.